The AJMC® Immuno-Oncology compendium is a comprehensive resource for clinical news and expert insights for treatments that utilize the body's immune system to fight cancer, such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapies.
May 9th 2024
Pembrolizumab has existing indications in endometrial cancer.
Dr Michael Kolodziej Discusses Concerns Around Paying for Innovative Treatments, Like CAR T
December 3rd 2018While new therapies like chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, can have amazing results, the innovation of these treatments has outstripped the United States’ ability to pay for them, said Michael Kolodziej, MD, vice president and chief innovation officer at ADVI Health, Inc.
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Real-World Evidence With Axicabtagene Ciloleucel CAR T Treatment Similar to ZUMA-1 Trial Findings
December 2nd 2018A multicenter retrospective study that evaluated the efficacy and safety of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell treatment, axicabtagene ciloleucel (axi-cel; Yescarta), in a real-world setting found a similar response as well as toxicity compared with the ZUMA-1 clinical trial.
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Larotrectinib Approved to Treat Patients With Advanced Solid Tumors Expressing NTRK
November 30th 2018This week, the FDA approved larotrectinib, to be sold as Vitrakvi, for the treatment of adult and pediatric patients with solid tumors that have a neurotrophic receptor tyrosine kinase (NTRK) gene infusion without a known acquired resistance mutation, are metastatic or where surgical resection is likely to result in severe morbidity, and have no satisfactory alternative treatments or that have progressed following treatment.
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CD7 CAR T Cells Selectively Target Leukemic Cells in Patients With AML
November 25th 2018CD7 gene-edited chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells target CD7-positive acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cells while sparing myeloid and erythroid cells and minimizing toxicity, according to the results of a recent study.
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Dr Brian Koffman Outlines the Follow-up as a Patient Treated With CAR T
November 24th 2018After being treated for his chronic lymphocytic leukemia with chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy, Brian Koffman, MDCM, DCFP, DABFM, MS Ed, medical director, CLL Society, is being followed for 15 years to better understand if there are any undiscovered adverse events that pop up and how durable the response is.
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Nivolumab Plus Azacitidine Increased Response Rates in Patients With Relapsed AML
November 16th 2018The addition of nivolumab to azacitidine led to significantly better overall response rate and overall survival compared with previous hypomethylating agent-based regimens in patients with relapsed acute myeloid leukemia (AML), according to the results of a recent phase 2 study.
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CD8 T Cell May Determine Patient Responses to Immune Checkpoint Inhibitors for Melanoma
November 13th 2018Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad institute of MIT and Harvard recently identified specific states of cytotoxic CD8+ T cells that are associated with patient response to checkpoint immunotherapy for melanoma.
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Nobel Prize Winner Dr James Allison on the Impact His Work Has Made
November 12th 2018It has been good knowing that treatments he has had a hand in developing will give years of quality life to patients, where treatments only gave a few months before, explained James Allison, PhD, chair of the Department of Immunology, the Vivian L. Smith Distinguished Chair in Immunology, director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Research, executive director of the Immunotherapy Platform at MD Anderson Cancer Center, and 2018 Nobel Prize cowinner in Medicine.
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FDA Approves New Immunotherapy Combination for Relapsed/Refractory Multiple Myeloma
November 8th 2018Today, the FDA approved elotuzumab (Empliciti), an injection for intravenous use in combination with pomalidomide and dexamethasone (EPd) for the treatment of adult patients with multiple myeloma who have received at least 2 prior therapies.
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Immunotherapy Improves Survival in Metastatic Melanoma
November 7th 2018The use of CTLA-4, PD-1, or a combination approach achieved high response rates and improved overall survival in patients with CDKN2A mutations with metastatic melanoma, based on the results of a study by Helgadottir et al.
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Pembrolizumab Plus Chemotherapy Approved to Treat Metastatic Squamous NSCLC
November 2nd 2018Earlier this week, the FDA approved pembrolizumab (Keytruda) in combination with carboplatin and either paclitaxel or nab-paclitaxel for the first-line treatment of patients with metastatic squamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).
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CAR T Cells Improve Antitumor Activity in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
November 1st 2018Gene-edited glypican-3 (GPC3)-targeted chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells with deficient programmed death–1 have greater cytotoxicity compared with wild-type GPC3-targeted T cells in GPC3-positive hepatocellular carcinoma, based on results from a recent study.
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Nobel Prize Winner Dr James Allison on Meeting Patients Treated With Ipilimumab
October 24th 2018As a basic scientist, James Allison, PhD, didn’t always meet the patients who benefitted from treatments he discovered, but he did meet 1 woman who participated in one of the early trials of ipilimumab.
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Switchable CAR T Cells May Be Safer in Pancreatic Cancer
October 19th 2018Switchable chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells with a switch directed towards human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) has similar efficacy as conventional HER2 CAR T cells while also having a greater control over treatment toxicities.
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Opdivo Fails to Meet Primary Endpoint in Phase 3 SCLC Trial
October 17th 2018Last week, Bristol-Myers Squibb announced results from the phase 3 CheckMate -331 trial that investigated nivolumab (Opdivo) versus the current standard of care, chemotherapy, in the treatment of patients with small cell lung cancer (SCLC) who relapsed following platinum-based chemotherapy. The trial found that nivolumab did not significantly increase overall survival compared with chemotherapy.
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FDA Approves Libtayo to Treat Second Most Common Skin Cancer
October 10th 2018Last week, the FDA granted approval to immune checkpoint inhibitor cemiplimab-rwlc, to be sold as Libtayo, for the treatment of metastatic cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma (CSCC), or in patients with locally advanced CSCC who are not candidates for curative surgery or curative radiation.
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Does Transcriptional Loss of HLA Cause Immunotherapy Resistance?
October 8th 2018The development of resistance to immunotherapy is poorly understood and is detrimental to patients who relapse on multiple lines of treatment. Transcriptional downregulation of class 1 human leukocyte antigen (HLA) may contribute to the developed resistance of immunotherapies, including checkpoint inhibitors, and warrants further investigation, according to a study published in Nature Communications.
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Single Resistant Cell Causes Case of Rare ALL Relapse After CAR T Therapy
October 1st 2018A single leukemia cell was able to reproduce and cause a deadly relapse of pediatric B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) after it had bonded with the leukemia-targeting chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) lentivirus and infused back into a patient. The case of the cell that became resistant to CAR T-cell therapy was published in the journal Nature Medicine Monday.
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Imfinzi Plus Chemotherapy Reduced Risk of Death by One-Third in Stage III NSCLC
September 28th 2018Earlier this week, drug manufacturer Astrazeneca announced the results from a phase 3 trial studying durvalumab (Imfinzi) among patients with stage III unresectable non­–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) who did not have disease progression after concurrent chemoradiotherapy.
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Ipilimumab Plus Nivolumab Improved Tumor Responses in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer
September 28th 2018A phase 2 trial evaluating the 2 checkpoint inhibitors, nivolumab and ipilimumab, found significantly better tumor responses with the combination compared with nivolumab alone in patients with recurrent epithelial ovarian cancer.
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Amgen's AMG 420 Finds Early Success in Patients With Relapsing/Refractory Multiple Myeloma
September 20th 2018Amgen’s pipeline drug AMG 420, a bispecific T-cell engager (BiTE) for the treatment of patients with relapsing/refractory multiple myeloma (RRMM), has found positive preliminary results in a phase 1 trial.
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Keytruda Earns Priority Review as Monotherapy in NSCLC
September 17th 2018Last week, the FDA granted priority review to a new supplemental Biologics License Application for pembrolizumab (Keytruda) as a monotherapy for first-line treatment of locally advanced or metastatic nonsquamous or squamous non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in patients whose tumors express PD-L1 without EGFR or ALK mutations.
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NCCN Report on CAR T-Cell Therapy, Recommendations for Future Use
September 14th 2018A recent report from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) investigated the current state of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy and future strategies to consider as the novel immunotherapy evolves and is used in the treatment of more patients.
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EU Approves Keytruda for First-Line Treatment of Metastatic Nonsquamous NSCLC
September 12th 2018Pembrolizumab (Keytruda) earned European approval this week, in combination with platinum-based pemetrexed, for the first-line treatment of metastatic nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) in adults whose tumors lack EGFR or ALK mutations.
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